character is marked with all the traits of premature corruption and precocious turpitude, our manners are barren of refinement, and our minds are destitute of learning and incapable of great intellectual exertion. When we adventure into the fields of science the master spirits, who preside over transatlantic literature, view us with a sneer of supercilious contempt or with a smile of complaisant superiority; and consider our productions as Oases in the regions of Africa; deriving their merit less from intrinsic beauty and excellence, than from their contrast with the surrounding deserts. And it has even been gravely proposed, as a subject for inquiry, whether the discovery of America has been advantageous or prejudicial to mankind!(1)

While we look down upon these aspersions it is due to candour, and a just estimate of our own character, to acknowledge that generally speaking, we are far behind our european brethren in the pursuits of literature. The enterprising spirit which distinguishes our national character, has exhibited itself in every shape except that of a marked devotion to the interests of science. There is nothing in the fixed operation of physical or moral causes, nothing in our origin, in our migration or in our settlement; nothing in our climate, our soil, our government, our religion, our manners, or our morals, which can attach debility to our minds or can prevent the cultivation of literature. Two hundred years have nearly elapsed since the first european settlement was made in this state; and if, in the course of two centuries, labouring under difficulties of various kinds, we have not attained the first elevation in the ranks of knowledge, surely sufficient reasons may be assigned without impeaching the character of our minds or degrading us in the scale of being. Although in a review of these causes, which I shall now attempt with all possible brevity, my remarks relate particularly to this state, they will apply, generally speaking, to the United States at large.

Ancient migrations were generally the offspring of want. Sometimes a whole people departed from their natal soil, and sought for better destinies in a milder climate and a more prolific land. Sometimes, when population became surcharged, and subsistence difficult, a portion of a nation would change its habitation: at other times, colonies were planted for the purpose of retaining conquered countries and checking the predatory incursions of barbarian hordes. A different principle seems to have led to the first colonization of America. The discovery of this western world appears to have infused a new spirit into Europe: the. imaginations of men were dazzled with fabulous stories of dorados, or mountains of gold, and of fountains by which the human race flourished in immortal youth. In this land the god of wealth was supposed to have erected his temples, and his votaries flocked from all quarters to propitiate his blessings. When experience had sobered the distempered fancies of these adventurers, and had convinced them of their delusion, they still discovered that, although the precious metals were not within their

ness.

grasp, yet that their cupidity could be amply gratified by the abundant. · products of the soil. The settlement of this country was thus made with a view to the acquisition of wealth; knowledge was out of the question. The attachments of the emigrants, like their origin, were exotic; the land of their adoption was considered as secondary and inferior, in every respect, to the land of their nativity; and their anxious eyes were constantly directed to the period when they could return to their native soil laden with the bounties of the new world. This country was also planted at a time when the intellectual world was involved in cimmerian darkThe scholastic philosophy was the reigning knowledge of the times;-a philosophy of words and notions, conversant only in logical distinctions, abstractions, and subtleties; which left real science wholly uncultivated to hunt after occult qualities, abstract notions, and objects of impertinent curiosity. This system, which was founded by the commentators on Aristotle, who were called profound, irrefragable, and angelic doctors, corrupted every department of knowledge and maintained its supremacy for several centuries. The stagyrite was even considered as entitled to the honours of an evangelist; and Melancthon complains that his ethics were read to the people, instead of the gospel, in sacred assemblies. In this great serbonian bog the human mind lay ingulfed, entranced, and bewildered for ages; and the glimmering rays of light which the peripatetic philosophy shed over the world, were confined to the cloister and the college. At this period this country was first settled by the countrymen indeed of Erasmus and of Grotius; but the works of Erasmus were locked up in latin ;-Grotius was scarcely known, and few of our ancestors were acquainted with the first elements of knowledge. They settled here under the auspices of a dutch west-india company, and when the province was surrendered to the english, in 1674, no advantages resulted to the cause of knowledge. Charles II. was a witty sensualist-James II. was a contracted bigot-William of Orange was a mere soldier. The constellation of intellectual luminaries which shone in the augustan age of England diffused but little light across the Atlantic: the two first of the Brunswick kings had neither knowledge themselves, nor did they value it in others; and with the third dynasty we measured swords, and a severance of the empire ensued.

There is something in the nature of provincial government which tends to engender faction, and to prevent the expansion of intellect. It inevitably creates two distinct interests; one regarding the colony as subservient in every respect to the mother country, and the other rising up in opposition to this assumption. The governor and principal magistrates, who derive their appointments from an extrinsic source, feel independent of the people over whom they are placed. The operation of this principle has been powerfully experienced in our territorial governments, which have been the constant theatre of intestine divisions; and when the human mind is called away from the interest of

science to aid, by its faculties, the agitations of party, little can be expected from energies thus perverted and abused. The annals of our colonial state present a continual controversy between the ministers of the crown, and the representatives of the people. What did the governor and judges care for a country where they were strangers? where their continuance was transient; and to which they were attached by no tie that reaches the human heart. Their offices emanated from another country;-to that source they looked for patronage and support, to that alone their views extended; and having got, what Archimedes wanted, another world on which to erect their engines they governed this at pleasure.

The colonial governors were, generally speaking, little entitled to respect. They were delegated to this country not as men qualified to govern, but as men whose wants drove them into exile; not as men entitled by merit to their high eminence, but as men who owed it to the solicitations of powerful friends and to the influence of court intrigue. Thus circumstanced and thus characterized, is it wonderful to find them sometimes patroling the city disguised in female dress; at other times assailing the representatives of the people with the most virulent abuse, and defrauding the province by the most despicable acts of peculation; and at all times despising knowledge and overlooking the public prosperity? Justice, however, requires that we should except from this censure Hunter and Burnet. Hunter was a man of wit, a correspondent of Swift, and a friend of Addison.(2) Burnet, the son of the celebrated bishop of Salisbury, was devoted to literature; they were the best governors that ever presided over the colony.

The love of fame is the most active principle of our nature. To be honoured when living,-to be venerated when dead,--is the parent source of those writings which have illuminated,of those actions which have benefited and dazzled mankind. All that poetry has created, that philosophy has discovered, that heroism has performed, may be principally ascribed to this exalted passion. True it is,

"When fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast,
Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last;

And glory, like, the phoenix 'midst her fires,

Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires."

LORD BYRON. ¿

Yet, as long as man is susceptible of sublime emotions, so long will he commit himself to this master feeling of a noble nature. What would have become of the sublime work of Milton, if he had written for

the fifteen pounds which he received from the bookseller; and where would have been the writings of Bacon, if he had not aspired to immortal fame? "My name and memory," said this prince of philosophers, in his will, "I leave to foreign nations, and to my own countrymen after some time be passed over." When with one hand he demolished the philosophy of the schools, and with the other erected a magnificent' temple dedicated to truth and genuine knowledge, he was animated in his progress, and cheered in his exertions by the persuasion that after ages would erect an imperishable monument to his fame.

But in order that this passion may have its full scope and complete operation it is not only necessary that there should be a proper subject, but a suitable place and an enlightened public. The actor, in order to act well his part, must have a good theatre and a respectable audience• Would Demosthenes and Cicero have astonished mankind by their oratory, if they had spoken in Sparta or in Carthage? would Addison have written his Spectators in Kamtschatka, or Locke his work on the Understanding at Madrid ? destroy the inducement to âet, take away the capacity to judge, and annihilate the value of applause, and poetry sinks into dulness; philosophy loses its powers of research; and eloquence evapo rates into froth and mummery.

A provincial government, like ours before the revolution, was entirely incompetent to call into activity this ennobling propensity of our nature. A small population, scattered over an extensive country, and composed almost entirely of strangers to literature; a government derivative and dependent, without patronage and influence, and in hostility to the public sentiment; a people divided into political and religious parties, and a parent country watching all their movements with a stepmother's feel. ings, and keeping down their prosperity with the arm of power, could not be expected to produce those literary worthies who have illuminated the other hemisphere.

History justifies the remark that free governments, although happier in themselves, are as oppressive to their provinces as despotic ones. It was a common saying in Greece that a free man in Sparta was the freest man ; and a slave, the greatest slave in the world. This remark may be justly applied to the ancient republies which had provinces under their controul. The people of the parent country were free, and those remote were harrassed with all kinds of exactions, borne down by the high hand of oppression, and under the subjection of a military despotism. The colonial system of modern times is equally calculated to build up the mother country on the depression of its colonies. That all their exports shall go to and all their imports be derived from it, is the fundamental principle. Admitting occasional departures from this system, is it possible that an infant country, so bandaged and cramped, could attain to that

maturity of growth which is essential to the promotion and encouragement of literature? Accordingly we do not find in any colony of modern times any peculiar devotion to letters, or any extraordinary progress in the cultivation of the human mind. The most fertile soil,-the most benign climate,-all that nature can produce and art can perfect, are incompetent to remove the benumbing effects which a provincial and dependent position operates upon the efforts of genius.

These difficulties, so embarrassing, were augmented from other causes. The population of this colony was derived from several nations. The original emigrants were dutch. The next in order of time were from England. The revocation of the edict of Nantz, and the persecutions in the Palatinate, occasioned considerable migrations from France and Germany; Scotland and Ireland also furnished a great accession of inhabitants. Four different languages were for a long time used; and the people were separated from each other by a diversity of manners and opinions, and strong national prejudices. How, then, was it possible to combine their energies in any common effort? Two centuries have not entirely extinguished the lines of national separation. The dutch and german languages are still spoken in some settlements. Five or six generations have, in a great measure, amalgamated these discordant elements. National antipathies have subsided, a national character has been formed, and a national physiognomy is supposed to be established. The triumph and general adoption of the english language have been the principal means of melting us down into one people, and of extinguishing those stubborn prejudices and violent animosities which formed a wall of partition between the inhabitants of the same land. In a country whose population was thus composed, it was not to be expected that a great taste for literature would be considered an essential accompaniment. The government of Great Britain discountènanced emigrations. Transportation to the colonies was declared to be the punishment for many felonies. "It is a shameful and unblessed thing," said Bacon, "to take the scum of people; and wicked, condemned, men to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation." This measure was, no doubt, the result of design, the dictate of policy. It inculcated upon the public mind that the colonies were a place of punishment, not a country enjoying the blessings of life; and it prevented that copious flow of migration which the necessities of the people, and the hope of enjoying better fortunes in another land, would have unquestionably effected. Although the relegation of convicts to this country could not seriously affect the morals of the american people, or materially disturb their internal tranquillity, yet it certainly injured our character in the general estimation of Europe. The british government has established one great settlement for convicts; there can be little doubt but that the same sentiment existed at one period, in the